New research suggests that shorter women have a higher risk of giving birth to a premature baby.

Researchers at the March of Dimes Prematurity Research Center Ohio Collaborative found that maternal height, which is determined by genetic factors, helped shape the fetal environment, influencing the length of pregnancy and frequency of prematurity, The Washington Post reported.

"Our finding shows that a mother's height has a direct impact on how long her pregnancy lasts," Louis Muglia, primary investigator of the study and co-director of the Perinatal Institute at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, said in a statement. "The explanation for why this happens is unclear but could depend not only on unknown genes but also on woman's lifetime of nutrition and her environment."

For the study, researchers collected and analyzed data from nearly 3,500 Nordic women and their babies. They found that a mother's height directly influences her risk for shorter pregnancies, smaller babies, and a preterm birth, HealthDay reported.

"The explanation for why this happens is unclear but could depend not only on unknown genes but also on woman's lifetime of nutrition and her environment," Muglia said.

More than 450,000 babies are born too soon in the United States and the national preterm birth rate is worse than many other high-resource countries, according to the March of Dimes. Worldwide, 15 million babies are born preterm, and more than one million die due to complications of an early birth. Babies who survive an early birth face serious and lifelong health problems, including breathing problems, jaundice, vision loss, cerebral palsy and intellectual delays.

The March of Dimes is currently raising $75 million to support its five prematurity research centers.

The findings are detailed in the journal PLoS Medicine.